41,800 foreigners denied entry to Singapore from January to November; no-boarding system to start for airlines

In the US, the Secure Flight programme screens passengers in real time against a watch list managed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation for known or suspected terrorists.

In Australia, this is done through its Movement Alert List, which is administered by the Department of Home Affairs.

The list contains the information for people of interest, which could include those with serious criminal records or who pose security risks to the community, or under visa exclusion periods.

Similarly, ICA is moving its capabilities upstream to stem the tide of undesirable travellers making their way into Singapore.

The agency will progressively roll out the NBD initiative from January 2026 that will prevent known high-risk, prohibited or undesirable foreigners from boarding flights to Singapore.

DAC Tan, who is the current deputy director of ICA’s operations division, said the implementation of the NBD comes after multiple engagement sessions with airline operators since 2022.

“Currently, airlines conduct checks manually, relying on visual inspection of the passport biodata page and any supporting documents.

“This process is prone to human error, and airlines do not have the systems to verify whether a traveller holds a valid Singapore visa or has actually submitted their (arrival card details),” said DAC Tan.

With the NBD initiative, airlines will be able to receive boarding instructions after advance passenger information is screened through ICA’s systems, which will guide the operators to issue NBDs to those found ineligible for entry into Singapore, he added.

“When such travellers check in for a flight to Singapore, the airline which has been issued the NBD notice will (stop) these travellers from boarding the flight.”

But DAC Tan stressed that NBDs will be issued only to travellers whom ICA is fully certain are prohibited in Singapore.

Those who have been issued with NBDs but still wish to enter Singapore must contact ICA to seek approval for entry before they arrange for a new flight into the country, said DAC Tan.

For now, ICA depends heavily on officers like Sergeant 3 (SGT3) Muhammad Yusri Karim to sieve out undesirable travellers coming into Singapore, as part of its multi-layered security screening process.

SGT3 Yusri, 36, serves as an assessment and investigation officer at the Airport Command.

“Previously at the manual counters, we had to perform both immigration clearance and profiling work. This means we only had a few seconds to profile and determine if they are a high-risk traveller and interview them on the spot.

“It can get very stressful when you start to see long queues forming and feel fatigue,” said SGT3 Yusri.

The integration of ICA’s passport-less clearance at automated immigration clearance lanes by September 2024 helped to streamline the screening process.

“With passport-less clearance, which uses iris and facial biometrics for scanning, the time needed to clear one traveller has reduced significantly.

“We are able to clear a large volume of passengers more securely and efficiently,” said SGT3 Yusri.

And while NBDs will naturally play a bigger role at air and sea checkpoints due to the need to purchase boarding tickets, that does not mean land checkpoints will be compromised, said DAC Tan.

“Foreigners will still have to submit their arrival cards at land checkpoints so we will still have their advance information.

“The whole purpose of NBDs is to deny undesirable travellers from boarding (flights) into Singapore. It doesn’t compromise our ability to stop them even if they were to come to Singapore,” said DAC Tan. – The Straits Times/ANN